Forever Strong Precure
by SailorViola
Summary: Nobuko Arakawa is an ordinary thirteen year old girl, or at least she was until she met two fairies named Panchon and Pynchon and awoke as a Precure! Now she and her fellow Precure are up against the forces of Myedo, who wants nothing more than the compete and total control of all worlds and their inhabitants.
1. The Protector of Optimism - Cure Hope!

**CHAPTER 1 - Enter the Protector of Optimism - Cure Hope!**

* * *

'Come on, answer the phone,' muttered Nobuko Arakawa to herself as she waited for her friend to pick up on the other end. 'Don't know why I'm responsible for you waking up on time, but whatever.'

'H-hey, Nobuko,' her friend began, having finally answered the phone. 'Why are you calling me this early? I was trying to sleep in this morning, y'know?'

Incredulous, Nobuko responded with an annoyed tone, 'Sleep in? Keiko, you know it's Monday, right? We've got school.' She pinched her temple and sighed. 'Honestly, did you stay up all night playing games again?'

'Wait,' she slowly began to respond. 'It's Monday?' A few moments of silenced passed when suddenly her tone of voice changed dramatically. 'Ah jeez it is! Sorry, Nobuko! I gotta get ready quick! I'll meet you at school! Goodbye!'

'I'll see you a-' But before Nobuko could finish her sentence, the line went dead. She smiled to herself and shook her head. 'That girl, honestly.' Locking her phone and putting in her skirt pocket, she grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder and began to leave her room. Before she did, however, she stopped at her dresser and looked at a photo on top of it.

The photo was of two girls, one about thirteen and one about eight. The older of the two had short, dark hair with a blue hairclip keeping it out of her eyes and was wearing her school uniform, the younger girl had long magenta hair and was wearing a pink tank top and shorts. Both girls were smiling together.

'Don't worry, sis, I'll make today number one, like I always do,' she sadly smiled at the photo, tears starting to form in her eyes. Realizing what was happening, she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes clean, before finally leaving her room and heading downstairs to the living room.

'Ah, Nobuko,' her mother greeted her. 'Are you going to have breakfast this morning, or not?'

'Ah, sorry, I really can't,' she apologized. 'Don't have any time today, sorry!'

'Well, if you want, you can grab an apple from the kitchen before you go.'

'Already did, mom! Thanks, I'll see you after school!' she called out to her mother as she closed the front door behind her.

Taking a bite from her apple, she walked down her street, wondering if Keiko had remembered to write her essay that was due that morning. 'She probably hasn't,' she thought to herself 'Keiko loves video games and dramas and hates schoolwork.' She began to mindlessly kick a pebble down the sidewalk like a soccer ball. 'Goal!' she whispered as she kicked it hard and into a storm drain.

Having finished her apple, she looked around for a place to throw it out, quickly spotting a trash can on the other side of the alleyway she was standing at the entrance of. Nobuko had to go that way anyways, so it's not like it was out of her way or anything. Halfway down the alleyway, a voice suddenly broke out, 'Look out-pan!'

Stopping in her tracks, Nobuko looked around in confusion. 'Who said that?' she asked out loud.

'Help-pyn!' another voice shouted. Only this time, Nobuko knew exactly where it was coming from – above her. She turned her head to the sky, making sure to squint so the sun wasn't blinding her, and saw two things that she couldn't quite tell what they were falling from seemingly out of nowhere. Before too long, she could make out just what it was, or at least what it appeared to be: a cat and a dog, falling out of the sky.

Wham! – the two animals smacked right onto Nobuko's face, causing her to stumble and fall onto the concrete path of the alleyway, dropping her apple core, which rolled away from her. Although it's not as if she even remembered that she had that any more.

'Ouch,' she groaned, rubbing her thigh as she slowly got up. Brushing herself off and checking for any scrapes or bruises, she finally got a good look at what had fallen onto her face. A cat and a dog, or at least what looked like a cat and dog, seeing as they were light pink and dark green, respectively, and walking on their hind legs, were helping each other up.

'Come on, Panchon-pyn,' the dog spoke, having a young and boyish voice. 'Are you hurt-pyn? Tell me if you are, OK-pyn?'

'No, I'm fine-pan,' the cat responded. 'Thanks, though, Pynchon-pan.'

Having taken Nobuko more than a few seconds to process exactly what it was that she was seeing, she suddenly blurted out in surprise, 'T-that dog and cat are talking!' The two animals turned and looked at her in confusion.

'I'm not a dog-pyn,' the dog snapped back. 'And Panchon's not a cat-pyn.'

'Hello-pan! I am Panchon-pan!' the cat, or rather, Panchon, excitedly greeted Nobuko.

'H-hi', she nervously greeted back. 'Wait, wait, wait. Who, or what exactly, are you two?'

'I am Panchon-pan!' Panchon repeated 'And this is Pynchon-pan!' She gestured to the dog, who was still looking at Nobuko with an annoyed glare.

'Panchon-pyn!' he snapped. 'We have a mission to complete here, we can't waste time talking wi-' He stopped suddenly mid-sentence and thought for a moment. 'Actually, you, what's your name-pyn?' he asked, while pointing his paw at Nobuko.

'My name? Nobuko Arakawa.'

'Well then, Ms. Arakawa, I think you can help us on our mission-pyn.'

'Mission?'

'Yes, mission-pyn. We're looking for someone-pyn.'

'For who?'

'The legendary warriors-pyn'

'Precure-pan!' Panchon suddenly yelled out. 'We're looking for the legendary warriors called Precure-pan!'

'Wait, wait, wait, wait!' began Nobuko, suddenly jumping back to reality. 'I don't know who these Precure are and I gotta go to school anyways.' She checked the time on her phone. 'Well, I'm not going to be late, luckily.'

'Just listen Ms. Arakawa-pyn,' Pynchon began to explain. 'Panchon and I are going to have troubles in this world by ourselves-pyn. I see you've got a bag there, just let us in there and help us find the legendary warriors-pyn. That's all I ask-pyn.'

'We won't bother you, Nobuko-pan!' happily smiled Panchon.

'Alright, I don't know why I'm even doing this, but.' She knelt down and unclasped her bag, opening it up. 'Get in, before I change my mind,' she joked. Pancon and Pynchon climbed inside the bag and settled themselves amongst her books and papers.

'OK, Ms. Arakwa-pyn,' Pynchon said from inside her bag. 'We're all ready to go-pyn.'

'Yeah, well, don't mess up my papers while you're in there,' she retorted as she slung her bag over her shoulder once more and headed to school, now with two strange creatures in tow.

'Alright, alright class, settle down,' the teacher, Mr. Kita, calmly said, shuffling a pile of papers on his desk. 'Now, before you hand in your essays – we have a new student in our class this morning.' He stood up and gestured towards the door, 'Why don't you come in, Ms. Mizuhara and write your name on the board?'

A girl walked into the classroom and grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote her name on the board: Jenny Mizuhara. She turned to the rest of the class – she had shoulder length brown hair and dark-green eyes. 'I-I'm Jenny Mizuhara,' she nervously stammered. 'It's nice to meet you all.' She bowed to the class.

'Why don't you tell something about yourself to the rest of your classmates?' suggest Mr. Kita.

'Huh? Oh, ok,' she quietly replied. 'I, um, just moved here with my mom and I have a little brother named Takashi. Also, I, um, really like collecting flowers.'

'Well, that's all very interesting and I'm glad that you've introduced yourself to the class. Now then,' he paused to look for an empty desk for her. 'There's an open seat back there in the third row, next to Ms. Arakawa. Why don't you go and sit down and I'll get class started for today, OK?'

'Yes, sir,' she replied before going to the seat he chose for her. Taking her seat, she sighed and took out her notebook and pens and began to pay attention to what Mr. Kita was telling the class, but soon realized he was talking about handing in an essay that was due. Obviously being new to the class, Jenny didn't have anything to turn in.

'Hey,' whispered a voice next to her. 'Mizuhara.'

She looked to her left and saw her classmate, with her notebook up and hiding her face, looking at her and smiling. 'What do you want?' she quietly whispered back.

'I'm Nobuko Arakawa, I just wanted to say "Nice to meet you"' Nobuko answered 'Oh, and you said you liked flowers? That's cool. What flowers are your favorite?'

'C-chrysanthemums' she quietly replied.

'Those are pretty. I like roses myself, I'm also partial to daisies, I know those are pretty standard flowers to like but -'

'MS. ARAKAWA!' Mr. Kita suddenly shouted. Nobuko gulped and slowly cast her glance up, their teacher was standing right at her desk, arms crossed, looking mildly annoyed. 'Your essay, please?'

She opened up her bag and took out her paper and sheepishly handed it to him, 'Here it is, sorry.'

'Thank you,' he replied, taking the paper and adding it to the pile of papers he already had in his hands. 'Oh, and Ms. Arakawa? I understand you might want to talk to our new student, but please do that during lunch or after class, understand?'

'Yes, sir,' she quietly replied, looking down at her desk, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Later that day, during lunch, as most of the class began talking amongst themselves or heading out to eat together outside, Nobuko couldn't help but notice what Jenny had taken out of her bag.

'Neat!' she exclaimed. 'An American-style lunchbox. Seen those on TV.'

'Y-yeah,' Jenny quietly replied back. 'My mom's, um, she's from New York and wanted me to use this today.'

'Oh cool. Anyways, I was wondering, do you wanna eat lunch with me today?'

'N-no thanks.'

'Oh, alright then,' she began to head towards the classroom door. 'Well, I'll see you after lunch then, suppose.'

Finding a secluded spot in the school, Nobuko plopped down onto the bench and opened up her bag. Peering inside, she whispered 'Hey, sorry about that! I almost forgot you two were in there.'

'Honestly-pyn,' grumbled Pynchon, climbing out of the bag alongside Panchon. 'Annoying enough that I had to be quiet, but that took too long-pyn.'

'Sorry!' she apologized again. 'That's just how school can be.'

'I am hungry-pan!' Panchon suddenly exclaimed. 'Nobuko, give me food-pan!

'Food?' Nobuko took out her bento box and removed the lid. Picking one of her octopus sausages up with her chopsticks, she brought it towards Panchon. 'Here, Panchon.'

She grabbed hold of the sausage, opened her mouth wide, and swallowed it in one bite, her stomach distending for a brief moment. 'That was yummy-pan! Hey, Pynchon-pan? Are you hungry too-pan?'

'Hm? Well I guess a little bit-pyn.' Pynchon's stomach audibly growled, as if to call out his own lie. Turning slightly red, he blurted out, 'OK, I'm very hungry, alright-pyn!?'

'Here you go,' Nobuko offered him another one of her octopus sausages, smiling slightly.

Grabbing hold of it in his paws, he sat down and took a small bite. 'T-thank you, Ms. Arakawa-pyn,' he whispered.

Sighing, Nobuko stretched her arms and began to eat her lunch. In between bites, she began to ask, 'Hey, since we've got time. What exactly is your mission? Who are the Pre-whatever you've got to find?'

'I don't know-pan!' Panchon happily answered. 'Don't know who the Precure are-pan!'

'You don't know?' she asked incredulously. 'Then how do you expect to find them?'

'That's exactly why I asked you for help-pyn,' Pynchon began, swallowing the last bite of his octopus sausage. 'We don't know who the Precure are-pyn. They have to awaken first-pyn.'

'Awaken?'

'Suppose I should start from the beginning then, Ms. Arakawa-pyn?'

'Sure.'

'There's someone out there named Myedo, who wants all the worlds to fall under his control-pyn. I don't know the details, but he sends his minions to attack and conquer worlds in his name-pyn. Panchon and I were sent by our elder to this world to find the legendary warriors, Precure, the only ones who can fight against Myedo and his underlings-pyn!'

'OK, but you said they have to awaken, right? What does that mean, are they asleep or something?'

'All we know is that their powers are dormant and something has to be done to awaken them-pyn.'

'Think I'm starting to get it,' Nobuko began before stopping suddenly and casting a glance behind her. 'Someone's coming, hurry you two, get inside my bag before they notice you!' Clasping her bag shut, she turned around to see who was coming: it was only Keiko, causing her to breathe a sigh of relief as she wiped the sweat off her forehead.

'Yo, Nobuko!' her friend greeted her. 'Was there anyone else here with you?'

'Eh, what do you mean?'

'Thought I heard you talking to someone before I got here.'

'No, no, no one else here,' Nobuko gestured her hand dismissively. 'Was thinking out loud to myself for a little bit, probably just heard that.'

'Could swear it sounded like three people,' Keiko wondered, putting her hands on her hips. 'Whatever, might've just been hearing things.' She yawned and brushed her hair out of her eyes. 'Anyways, you done with lunch? Wanna start heading back to class?'

'Yeah, I'm ready.'

'Well then, lead the way, Mistress Nobuko,' she joked as she exaggeratedly bowed to her friend.

Nobuko simply rolled her eyes in annoyance and retorted back, 'Don't call me that!' She began to storm off, Keiko following close behind, giggling uncontrollably to herself.

The sound of the bell rang throughout the entire school – class was done for the day. Having put her books away, making sure to not smother Panchon and Pynchon, Nobuko looked over at Jenny, who was busy putting her own supplies away.

'Hey, Mizuhara,' she began. 'If you aren't busy, I could show you around the school before you head home?' No response – Jenny simply put the rest of her notebooks back in her bag. 'Mizuhara?'

'Leave me alone!' Jenny finally snapped. She quickly stood up from her desk and knocked her chair over in annoyance and anger, resulting in the rest of the classroom stopping what they were doing to look over at the two girls. 'I don't want to be your friend, so please just stop talking to me!' She hurried out of the classroom in a huff as her classmate's eyes followed.

'Mizuhara...' Nobuko quietly whispered to herself, picking up Jenny's chair and pushing it in against her desk. Someone's hand placed itself on her shoulder, immediately knowing who it was, she brushed it away. 'Hey, Keiko.'

'Don't worry about Mizuhara,' Keiko reassured her friend, smiling. 'You'll have plenty of time to make friends with her if you want.' She gave her a reassuring thumbs up. 'Anyways, can't chat much, gotta head home, parents are gonna be late this evening, so I gotta make dinner tonight. Bye-bye!' Flashing a peace sign, she sped out of the classroom in a hurry.

Checking her desk and bag to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, Nobuko left the classroom only a few minutes after her friend. Walking down the empty corridor of the school, her footsteps echoing with every step she took, she suddenly spoke up. 'Hey, Panchon, Pychon. Do you think I did something wrong to Mizuhara?'

'No-pan!' Panchon answered from inside her bag.

'I don't think so, Ms. Arakawa-pyn,' said Pynchon. 'I think something was just bothering that girl-pyn.'

'Think you're right, I shouldn't expect to just make friends with everyone new.' She paused for a moment before continuing, 'Everyone has things that bother them, even if they don't want to talk about it. Even me.'

'What's bothering you-pan?'

Taken aback by the directness of the question, Nobuko needed to take a second to think of an answer. 'Nothing right now, I mean in general, y'know?' She pulled open the doors at the rear entrance to the school and stepped outside into the crisp and cool air, letting a gentle breeze that had been blowing go over herself, relaxing her immensely. 'Don't worry, if something is up with me, I'll let you guys know first, OK?'

Walking across the rear school grounds and occasionally waving goodbye to friends she passed by who were busy with their after-school clubs, all seemed well for Nobuko, who had already put what had happened not even ten minutes ago behind her. At least, she had put it behind her until stepping in front of the school's greenhouse and noticed Jenny sitting alone on one of the benches, her knees curled up in front of her chest. Thinking quickly, she hid herself at the edge of the greenhouse and peered from behind the corner. Jenny had her face buried in her knees and hadn't noticed her yet. But, there was one thing that Nobuko had noticed about Jenny: she was crying. She couldn't see her tears, of course, but since the wind had died down, she could just so slightly hear the sounds of her weeping quietly to herself.

Nobuko thought about what to do – she had to go this way to head home, but she didn't want Jenny to think she had been eavesdropping on her, there was obviously something going on with her. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself to act as if she had just casually turned the corner and was completely oblivious to her being there, hoping that Jenny wouldn't notice her passing by. As she slowly started to step around the corner of the greenhouse, a loud scream pierced the air. Immediately forgetting about her 'acting casual' plan, she rushed around the corner to see what was going on.

What she saw shocked her to her core – Jenny was still there, only now sitting on the ground and cowering in fear at what stood before her. It was a woman – covering her upper torso, arms, and legs was a sandy-colored armor that resembled the exoskeleton of some sort of arthropod, the same type of material made up her heeled boots, as well. Her hair was dirty blonde and cut fairly short, albeit not to the level of a pixie cut, what appeared to be tattoos of some sort marked the outer corners of both of her eyes. And, what had surprised Nobuko the most: rising up from behind the woman's head, was a large scorpion tail.

'I am Alacrania!' the woman boastfully declared as she pointed at Jenny, still trying to hide from her. 'And you, young lady, will make the perfect start for Master Myedo's conquering of this pathetic little world!' Moving her hands around, she conjured a dark and cloudy sphere, about the size of a soccer ball in front of her. 'O Dark Spirits! Turn this girl into a puppet for me!' She launched the sphere at Jenny, who attempted to protect herself by covering herself with her arms.

The sphere hit her arms and the dark clouds engulfed her entire body. She let out a piercing scream as several small bolts of lightning flashed from amongst the clouds. The clouds rapidly grew in size, becoming at least nine meters in height, before dissipating just as rapidly as they had grown. Where the clouds had once been now stood an immense and dark grey creature with a mouth that appeared to be screaming, although it was making no sound, and eyes that just from their very shape gave the feeling of immense anger. Both the insides of the creature's mouth and its eyes were crimson in color. In addition, the creature had a slight feminine build to it and seemed to be wearing the same school uniform that Jenny had been wearing.

'Mizuhara!' Nobuko thought to herself as she worriedly looked at the massive creature while also hoping to see what had happened to her classmate. Before long, her eyes were drawn to it: embedded in the creature's chest was a dark purple orb and trapped inside the orb, her eyes completely colorless, was Jenny.

'She said Myedo-pyn!' shouted Pynchon as he and Panchon suddenly burst from Nobuko's bag and onto the floor. 'She's one of Myedo's underlings-pyn!'

'W-what do we do-pan?' Panchon worriedly asked. 'We haven't found the Precure yet-pan!'

'Hmm?' began Alacrania, having noticed the three of them at this point. 'Oh, young lady. You should feel blessed – you've witnessed the beginning of Master Myedo's reign over this world!' She raised her arm towards the creature that had once been, or had trapped, Jenny and shouted 'Puppet! Rampage for me, if you'd be so kind.' The creature let out a loud and deep roar and smashed its fist into the greenhouse, shattering it completely. After the greenhouse was in pieces, it turned and slowly began lumbering towards the main building of the school.

'N-no,' Nobuko murmured as she took a cautious step back. 'This can't be happening.' She began to take another step back but stopped herself mid-step. 'No,' she said again, more forcefully this time. 'I have to do something!' She clenched her fist in determination and shouted 'I have to save Mizuhara!'

As soon as those words left her mouth, an immensely bright light appeared in front of Nobuko, who had to cover her eyes due to its blindingness. The light quickly faded but in its place floated what appeared to be a pink and white-colored bracelet with a darker pink trim going around its outer edge and a closed locket of some sort on its top.

'A Cure Bracelet-pan!' happily shouted Panchon. 'Nobuko, you're a Precure-pan!'

'What?!' Nobuko shouted in confusion as to what was going on.

'Quickly, put on the bracelet and transform-pyn!' shouted Pynchon.

Not knowing what else to do, Nobuko quickly grabbed hold of the bracelet floating in front of her and attached it to her right arm. As soon as the bracelet was attached to her, it suddenly felt as if she understood everything that was going on and knew exactly what she had to do. She looked in front of her with determination and shouted 'Precure! Power up!' The locket on top of the Cure Bracelet opened up and engulfed Nobuko in a bright pink light. The bright light caused changes in her appearance: her medium-length magenta hair grew in length and changed in color to dark pink, with her small ponytail having grown in both length and volume, now going all the way down her back, with it being held in place by a golden band. Her dark purple eyes changed in color to light pink. Small triangular golden earrings appeared on her ears, her school uniform was replaced with a predominantly dark pink dress, albeit with lighter pink and rounded sleeves, a large white bow across her chest, and a second, almost pearl white, layer peeking just barely peaking from underneath her skirt. Her shoes were replaced with light pink high heeled shoes with a magenta trim going across the top and serving as an accent on the bottom half of the shoes.

The pink light having finally faded as soon as it appeared, the newly transformed Nobuko looked towards both Alacrania and the creature, which was still making its way to the main part of the school, with an immense level of intensity and determination and shouted the phrase that she seemed to instinctively know, 'The protector of optimism across all worlds, Cure Hope!'

Just as quickly as she had understood everything, Nobuko suddenly found herself snapped back into reality. 'Wait, wait, wait!' she panicked as she started looking over her new outfit. 'What on Earth just happened to me? Am I really a Precure? I don't understand this at all!'

'Well, well, a Precure? I didn't expect them to still exist. It doesn't matter anyways,' Alacrania chuckled to herself before facing the creature and shouting 'Puppet! Change of plans! Destroy this girl for me, instead!' She gestured, a slight smug smile on her face, towards Cure Hope. The creature roared in anger as it turned and lumbered towards Hope.

'W-what do I do?!' yelled Cure Hope, panicking and on the verge of just running away.

'You have to fight it-pan!'

'F-fight it? But it's got Mizuhara, I don't want to hurt her!'

'If you don't fight it, then she's as good as gone-pyn.'

'I got it,' Cure Hope replied with determination as she began running towards the creature. The creature let out a roar and swung its fist towards her, sensing when it was about to make contact with her, she quickly leaped out of the way of the danger. 'Whoa!' she exclaimed, looking back at Panchon and Pynchon. 'I can do that?!'

'Behind you-pan!'

Hope turned just in time to see the hands of the creature about to squish her like an insect, almost reflexively she raised her hands in defense and, to her shock and surprise, she had managed to prevent herself from being smashed. Tossing the creature's hands off her, she leapt into the air, to the point where she was now at head level with her opponent. 'Take this!' she angrily yelled as she swung her fist at the creature, a wave of energy was emitted from her punch, knocking the creature back as it let out a yell of agony. Now filled with even more determination, she attempted the same move again, but this time, the creature swung its arm at Hope and smashed right into her, knocking her onto the hard ground with a thud.

'Be careful, Hope-pan!' cried Panchon, as Pynchon attempted to comfort her.

Only flashing a quick smile and a thumbs up towards the two of them before seeming to rush back towards her opponent, Cure Hope suddenly made a beeline to one of the many light poles placed along the side of the pathway, grabbing hold of it, she tore it out of the ground as if it weighed nothing at all, quickly turned on her feet towards the creature, and punted the pole at it as if it were a javelin.

The pole jammed itself directly in the forehead of the creature, causing it to take a few steps back before collapsing in a daze.

'Now's your chance-pyn!' Pynchon yelled at Hope. 'Defeat that thing before it recovers-pyn!'

'OK!' Hope sped towards the dazed creature and leapt into the air once more, in the air, she found herself with the same feelings that she had when she put on the Cure Bracelet for the first time only a few minutes ago. 'The power of the goddess, come to me!' she shouted as her Cure Bracelet opened once more, shooting out a beam of pink light once more. Raising both her fists above her, the light struck both of them, causing a pink aura to form around them. 'Hope Beam!' she yelled as she brought her fists in front of her, as a ray of energy fired from the two of them and struck the still dazed creature.

The creature let out an immense and earthshaking roar as the same clouds that had created it began to appear again, only this time they were a light pink in color. The pink clouds continued to cover the creature as it continued roaring, once the creature was completely covered in them, there was a bright flash of light and all sounds stopped from the mass. The clouds dissipated and, with them, was all signs of the creature – all that was there was Jenny Mizuhara, lying on the ground.

'Cure Hope!' Alacrania snapped. 'You got lucky this time!' But before Hope could react, she vanished.

'Mizuhara!' Hope shouted, rushing towards the motionless Jenny, not even paying attention to the fact that the greenhouse had been restored following her defeat of the creature. 'She's fine!' she called at Panchon and Pynchon after getting to her. Picking her up in her arms, Hope carried Jenny to the bench she had been crying on before everything happened and gently set her down.

'Come on, let's go,' she calmly remarked as she hurried back to the side of the greenhouse, with her two companions following closely behind. Once hidden from sight, Hope detransformed in a flash and turned back into Nobuko Arakawa, second-year middle school student. Opening her bag, she gestured for the two of them to get back in.

'I'm sleepy-pan,' yawned Panchon, pulling herself into the bag.

'You did good today, Ms. Arakawa-pyn,' commented Pynchon as he climbed in after Panchon.

Peering around the corner, Nobuko couldn't help but notice Jenny sitting on the bench, as if nothing had happened. 'Good, she's OK,' she thought to herself as she prepared to walk past her as if the strangest thing ever hadn't just happened.

As she briskly walked past Jenny, attempting to not look at her and act casual, her train of thought was interrupted by Jenny calling out 'U-um, Arakawa!'

Not even turning to look at her, she simply called back, 'Yes, Mizuhara?'

'I, um, want to apologize. For earlier, I mean. I think that, um, I'd like to try being friends.'

Finally turning to look at her, Nobuko smiled at her and wryly asked, 'You sure, Mizuhara?'

'Y-yes, Arakawa. I'm sure.'

'Well, if you have to go this way to get home, why don't we walk together? I have to go this way, too.'

'Y-yeah, I'd like that.' Jenny said, smiling slightly at Nobuko.

'Come on then, let's go,' Nobuko beckoned towards Jenny as she began to walk down the pathway again. Nodding, Jenny got up from the bench, brushed herself off, and quickly caught up with Nobuko and the two girls, their friendship just seeded, began walking home together, chatting casually between each other along the way.

Later, Nobuko and Jenny had reached the neighborhood when Jenny stopped to gesture towards a house near them. 'Um, Arakawa, I guess this is goodbye for now. That's my house right there. I'll see you tomorrow.'

Excited, Nobuko looked at the house Jenny was pointing out. 'No way!' she exclaimed. 'You live here? Wait just a second!' Making sure there were no cars coming, she jogged across the street before excitedly pointing at another house on the corner across from Jenny's house. 'I live right here!'

'O-oh! That's great!'

'Yeah!' she beamed. 'Maybe you could come over soon? Anyways, see ya, Mizuhara.'

'Yes, goodbye for now, Arakawa.'

And with that, the two girls headed to their homes with a friendly wave and a smile.


	2. The Precure of Change!

**CHAPTER 2 - The Second Precure is the Precure of Change!**

* * *

'You know, I still can't believe it,' Keiko observed. 'I can't believe that the two of you would start becoming friends after what happened on your first day, Mizuhara.'

Jenny chuckled nervously and replied, 'W-well, you know how it is. Guess I was just being rude, you know?'

'Yeah!' Nobuko interjected, putting her hand on Jenny's shoulder. 'Plus, it turns out that Mizuhara and I basically live next door, so might as well become friends, right?'

'I see, I see,' Keiko commented, crossing her arms across her chest. 'Soon the entire school will fear us – The Terrible Trio!'

'Terrible...' Jenny slowly began.

'...Trio?' Nobuko finished for her, before the two girls burst into laughter.

Offended, she looked up at the two of them and asked, exasperatedly, 'What? What's wrong with The Terrible Trio?'

'Keiko,' Nobuko began. 'You're the only terrible one here, not us.' She sighed as Keiko took a moment to process the fact that she had just been insulted. 'Anyways, Mizuhara, I'll see you at my house, yeah?'

'Yeah, we'll be over soon.'

'Alright, see you,' Nobuko waved goodbye to the two of them as she picked her bag off the ground, slung it over her shoulder, and headed home.

'Huh, Nobuko's house? What's that all about, Mizuhara?'

'My family's going to her house because they invited us over yesterday to welcome us to the neighborhood. I should be going now. Farewell, Sawada.' She limply waved her hand in farewell at Keiko as she began walking in the same direction as Nobuko.

'I'm home!' Nobuko called out as she pushed open the front door. 'Mizuhara says she'll be here pretty soon!'

'Ah, Nobuko,' her mother responded from somewhere in the house. 'I'm in the kitchen, come in here and take a look at what I'm making for our new neighbors.'

Tossing her bag onto the living room table, she walked into the kitchen to see her mother washing something in the sink. Heading over to the stove, where something – it seemed – was cooking away in a pot, she carefully lifted off the lid to try and take a brief peek at whatever her mother was making. Unfortunately for her, all that was in the pot was water. 'Uh, mom,' she began, putting the lid back on the pot. 'There's nothing in here.'

'Of course not, silly!' her mother laughed. 'The water isn't boiling yet, is it?'

'No.'

'Exactly!' she smiled, as she turned, revealing that she had been washing a potato. 'Can't exactly make my famous beef and potato spaghetti unless it's boiling.' She casually tossed the potato from one hand to another. 'Be a dear for me and get the potato peeler, won't you?'

Nodding in affirmation, Nobuko opened the drawer that they all called the 'miscellaneous kitchen stuff drawer' and looked around for the potato peeler. As she searched, she thought to herself, 'Famous beef and potato spaghetti? I want Mizuhara and her family to like us, not hate us. Whatever, it's mom's "specialty", I suppose. Having finally found the peeler, she handed to her mother.

'OK, mom, need me for anything else?'

'No, I don't think so, I'll be down here so when the neighbors come, I'll call for you and dad.'

Without a word, Nobuko left the kitchen, grabbed her bag from the living room table, and made her way upstairs and to her room. Before getting to her room, however, she stopped at a closed door and quietly knocked twice.

'Come in, Nobuko,' a voice from inside the room answered.

Opening the door, she stepped slowly inside – the room was nothing out of the ordinary, just an office-type that many houses had, with her dad sitting at his desk, typing his work out on the computer. Still, she always felt nervous about going in here, since she had never been let inside as a child. 'Hey, dad, the neighbors,'

'Will be here today,' he finished for her. 'I already know, I already know.' He gestured his thumb at the computer screen. 'Just finishing up some work here. I'll be helping your mom out with dinner when I'm done, gonna make some salad to go with whatever she's making.'

'She's making her famous beef and potato spaghetti,' Nobuko quietly remarked.

'Oh,' her father responded. After a few seconds of silence, he began laughing, 'Well, I think my salad will at least counterbalance that!'

'Yeah, it better!' she laughed back. 'Well, just wanted to make sure you knew. I'll be in my room if you need me!'

Finally in her room, she mindlessly tossed her bag onto the bed, and started to unbutton her top, getting ready to change into her casual clothes. Before she could unbutton more than the first two buttons, she suddenly remembered something important she had almost forgotten in her bag – Panchon and Pynchon.

'I'm super sorry!' she apologized to the two of them as they crawled out of her bag and onto her bed. 'Really hope you weren't hurt when I tossed my bag around.'

'Honestly, Ms. Arakawa-pyn,'Pynchon began, putting his arms on his hips. 'And you shouldn't forget your mission either, you know-pyn.'

'Y-yeah,' she replied as she plopped down onto the bed with them. It hadn't even been two days since it had happened – that strange scorpion-like woman calling herself Alacrania turning Jenny into some sort of creature and Nobuko herself transforming into one of the legendary warriors named Cure Hope to fight it – but she still couldn't believe that it wasn't some bizarre dream. It clearly hadn't been, Panchon and Pynchon were there on her bed, and her Cure Bracelet was still on her right arm. She thought back to that fight and remembered something else – she had called for the power of the goddess, but who was this goddess, she wondered to herself.

'Nobuko-pan!'

Finding herself suddenly jerked away from her thoughts, she answered, 'Yeah, Panchon?'

'I'm hungry-pan!'

'Really? What about the snacks I bought for you at the convenience store?'

'I can't open them-pan.' Panchon said bluntly. 'Look, my paws are small-pan!' She thrust her arms out towards Nobuko and showed her small paws at the end of them. 'Small-pan!' she exclaimed.

Nobuko giggled as she gently pinched one of Panchon's paws. 'Yeah, they are pretty small.' Grabbing her bag, she rummaged around inside it before finding the snacks she had bought for them underneath one of her notebooks. Taking them out – they were actually just little bags of cat and dog treats – she tore them open and handed Panchon the now opened bag of cat treats. 'Here you go, Panchon.' Looking towards Pynchon, who was now sitting on one of her pillows, she offered him the dog treats. 'Want these?'

'Yes, please-pyn.'

'Bon appetit,' she joked as she gave him the dog treats. Sighing, she fell backwards onto the bed with a thud. 'Now, could you please tell me more about all this Precure stuff, Pynchon?'

'Alright, alright-pyn,' Pynchon began, tossing a dog treat into his mouth. 'Being a Precure means...'

'Means?'

'Being a legendary warrior-pyn!'

Taken completely aback by this matter of fact statement, it took Nobuko more than a few seconds for her to come up with a respond. 'Pynchon! I already know that! I wanna know more about being a Precure!'

He let out an exasperated sigh before continuing, 'Unfortunately, that's all I know-pyn. The elder didn't explain much when he sent Panchon and I to this world-pyn.'

'Well, what about the elder?' she asked. 'Can't we contact him and get more info?'

'Ah!' Panchon exclaimed. 'Remember what the elder said about the Cure Bracelets-pan?'

Pynchon looked over at her in confusion for a moment before realizing what she was talking about. 'That's it, Panchon-pyn!' he snapped his fingers in excitement before looking at Nobuko. 'Ms. Arakawa-pyn! The elder told us that the Cure Bracelet can be used to talk to him-pyn!'

Nobuko looked at her Cure Bracelet nervously. 'OK, what do I do?'

He thought long and hard before finally admitting, 'I don't know-pyn.'

'Hey!' she snapped at him, getting right into face. 'Don't tell me to do something and then tell me you don't know what I need to do!' She gently poked his cheek with her finger. 'So, I guess we can't talk to this elder, then?' She sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall, 3:26 PM it read. 'I wanted to at least understand something about all this before Mizuhara got here.'

'Um, I know what to do-pan,' Panchon quietly spoke up. 'Nobuko, you have to hold you arm up-pan.'

'Like this?' she questioned, holding her arm with the Cure Bracelet in front of her chest.

'Yes-pan!' she affirmed. 'Now say "The two worlds connect and let us communicate"-pan!'

'The two worlds connect and let us communicate-pan!' she shouted.

'Nobuko-pan,' Panchon giggled. 'You don't have to say "pan"-pan.'

'Ah, sorry!' But before she could continue, a yellow light began to emit from the Cure Bracelet, it quickly grew in luminosity before suddenly flashing before Nobuko's eyes and fading away as soon as it appeared. The locket on the Cure Bracelet had opened once more and an image of a creature that looked similar to Panchon and Pynchon appeared from the opened locket, looking similar to a hologram from a science-fiction movie.

'Huh?' the creature began as it looked around in confusion. 'What in the wor-' it stopped when it noticed Nobuko. It fell backwards in fright and yelped out 'Ah! W-who are you!? How did you contact me!? If this is another subscription offer, I'm not interested!'

Before she could even come up with a response to that, Panchon and Pynchon happily climbed onto Nobuko's lap.

'Elder-pan!' Panchon happily shouted.

'It's us-pyn!' added Pynchon.

'Panchon, Pychon!' the elder said, smiling. 'It's been so long, how have you two been? Have you found a Precure yet?'

'Hello?' Nobuko interrupted, raising her other hand in a confused greeting. The elder looked back at her before coming to the realization of how she was able to contact him.

'Oh, so you're a Precure!' he observed. 'I'm so sorry, young lady, I should have realized.'

'Don't worry, don't worry,' she reassured him. 'Anyways, mind telling us more about this Precure stuff anyways? Those two don't know much and I certainly don't either.'

'We don't-pan!'

'You didn't exactly tell us much, elder-pyn.'

The elder sat down, or rather appeared to have sat down, but being an image coming from the Cure Bracelet, he looked like he was now floating in the air to the three of them in Nobuko's room. 'You're right, you're right,' he began. 'Panchon, Pychon, and uh-'

'Nobuko'

'Yes, thank you. Now then, the Precure are warriors that have been protecting the universe since long before I came about. Unfortunately, I don't know where they came from, the source of their powers, or even really what makes them awaken but what I do know is this: they are the only thing standing in the way of Myedo's plan to have all worlds and people from falling under his control.'

'Hmm, I see,' Nobuko concurred. 'What about this Myedo person, can you tell me about him?'

'Myedo wants to take over all worlds.'

'Yes, you just said that.'

'Alright, and, from what I know from the previous elder, he has his underlings who do his dirty work for him. Panchon and Pynchon, you probably told Nobuko here that they conquer worlds for him, right?'

'Yes-pyn.'

'Well,' he continued, crossing his arms and sighing. 'It's more than that. They don't just take over some place and Myedo now rules it, they turn all the people living there into obedient servants of Myedo as well, so there won't be any resistance to his rule.'

'T-that's terrible-pan!' cried Panchon, tears beginning to swell in her eyes.

'It is,' the elder affirmed, slowly looking towards the floor as if he dreaded what he had to say next. 'And I'm sad to say, they tried attacking us as well.'

'W-WHAT-PYN!?' screamed Pynchon in disbelief.

'It's true,' he replied regretfully. 'We were able to stop them by sending most of our world to another dimension, where Myedo's underlings can't reach us. But -' He suddenly stopped speaking.

'B-but what-pan?' cried Panchon.

'We couldn't save everyone. Some had already been turned, others decided to stay to try and fight. The previous elder was one of them. I hadn't completed my training under him yet.'

'So that's why,' Nobuko slowly began. 'You don't know much about this Precure stuff.' A knock on the door interrupted them. 'Y-yes?' she called out before whispering to the three of them, 'Be quiet, please!'

'Nobuko,' her father said from the other side. 'The Mizuharas are here. Come downstairs, your mother needs you for something, too.'

'B-be right there!' she called back. Staying quiet and listening as her father's footsteps thudded down the hallway and down the stairs, she looked at the elder. 'Hey, elder, sir. Sorry, but personal things have called.'

'I understand, I understand,' he nodded. 'Panchon and Pynchon, I hope it won't be long before you contact me again. And Nobuko, it was nice to meet you, and I hope you can save us all from Myedo.' He bowed to them and the image from the Cure Bracelet faded away and the locket closed itself.

Pulling herself out of bed, Nobuko looked at herself in the mirror and frowned slightly. 'Well, I wanted to change my clothes,' she observed, putting her hands on her hips in disappointed. 'Suppose I don't have time for that now.' Looking at Panchon and Pynchon, both of whom had resumed eating their snacks, she gestured her finger towards them both. 'Hey, you two, don't go messing around while I'm downstairs.'

'I won't-pan!' Panchon beamed as she raised her arm.

'I wouldn't dream of it, Ms. Arakawa-pyn,' Pynchon added, half-jokingly, tossing another dog treat into his mouth.

'OK then, I'll be back soon, I hope,' she waved goodbye to the two of them as she exited her room and headed downstairs.

Once downstairs and in the living room, she encountered father sitting on the couch, chatting with a woman she didn't recognize. 'Mizuhara's mother,' she thought to herself.

'Ah, you must be Nobuko,' the woman greeted her kindly. 'I'm Jenny's mother, she's told me a bit about you. Quite lucky to live next door to someone going to the same school as her, isn't she?' She laughed.

'Y-yeah,' she nervously chuckled, rubbing the back of her head with her hand. 'Where is Mizuhara, anyways?'

'She's in the kitchen with your mother and Takashi.' she replied.

'Takashi?'

'Her little brother.'

'Ah, right,' she nodded, remembering that Jenny had mentioned him when she introduced herself to the rest of the class. 'Well, I'll go see what mom wanted, then.' Entering the kitchen, her mother was still busy preparing while Jenny and a young boy, Jenny's brother, watched. 'Hey, mom, you said you needed me?'

Her mother turned around to look at her, 'Yes, Nobuko. There's a slight problem with tonight's dinner.'

'Which is?'

'Well, you're not going to believe this,' she began laughing. 'But I wanted to have ice cream for dessert, but we're out of it!'

Sighing and shaking her head in disbelief, Nobuko knew just what to say next, 'And you want me to get some, right?'

Handing her daughter a ¥1000 banknote, she nervously smiled, 'Be a dear and get some at the convenience store, please?'

Folding the note and putting it in her skirt pocket, she sighed, 'Don't have a choice do I?' She nodded at Jenny, 'Hey, Mizuhara? Wanna come with me?'

'S-sure,' she nodded back before looking at her little brother. 'Wanna come too, Takashi?'

'Nah,' he said, completely bluntly. 'Rather stay here and watch TV.'

Shrugging her shoulders, she simply remarked, 'Brothers. They can't be helped, can they?'

'Wouldn't know, haven't been cursed with one like you have, Mizuhara.' The two girls chuckled together. 'I'll meet you outside, I'm gonna grab something from my room real quick.'

'OK, Arakawa.'

Not even a few minutes later, the two of them were now standing outside of Nobuko's house as she called into the house, 'We're off now, we'll try to be back sooner rather than later.' After hearing her mother, father, and Jenny's mother wishing them well, Nobuko shut the door, took her house keys from her pocket, and locked it. While turned around, she carefully opened what she had got from her room – her purse, which she put the ¥1000 note in, and looked inside it. Panchon and Pynchon both resting in it, with Panchon using the note like a blanket. 'Remember to be quiet, OK?' she whispered to the both of them. 'Mizuhara's here too.'

'Got it-pan,' Panchon whispered back.

'Understood, Ms. Arakawa-pyn,' confirmed Pynchon.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she closed her purse up and began to make her way from the front steps of her house to the sidewalk. 'Come on, Mizuhara, convenience store's this way.' She pointed towards the left, away from the direction they'd need to go if they wanted to go to Jenny's house and school. Flashing a thumbs up in understanding at her, the two of them began their journey to the local convenience store to buy the ice cream for that evening's dinner between their two families.

The door slowly creaked upon, letting the light from outside enter the dimly lit room. As someone quietly stepped inside and began to shut the door, they were startled by a voice coming from somewhere else in the room.

'Who's there?' the voice demanded.

'Relax, Ge, it's only me,' Alacrania assured the voice.

'Alacrania,' Ge responded, stepping out of the shadows. She slyly smiled at her companion. 'It's been a few days since you've been here, Bishyu and I were starting to wonder if something had happened to you.' She looked behind her for a moment. 'Or at least, I was, Bishyu is the same as he's always been.'

As if on cue, Bishyu stepped out of the shadows next to Ge. Waving at Alacrania he spoke, his voice having a rather haughty and full of himself tone, 'Welcome back, Alacrania. I hope you don't mind us having you do our work. I can't leave this place, the people here won't respect my beauty.' Chuckling, he tossed a few strands of his long, silver hair out of his face.

'I'm sure they wont,' Alacrania muttered under her breath before facing Ge. 'Ge, there's something you need to know. Something I encountered while I was out there.'

'What?'

'There was a girl, she turned into a Precure.'

'What?!' Ge screamed, stomping her boot onto the ground in frustration and disbelief. 'The Precure still exist?!'

'It seems so,' she shrugged. 'She called herself Cure Hope, it that means anything to you.'

'No, it doesn't,' she looked over at Bishyu and thought for a moment before continuing. 'Bishyu, I need you do to something for me.'

Sighing over-dramatically, he moaned, 'Oh, do I have to leave this place? I really don't want to – I don't know why Master Myedo had to send someone of my beauty to such an ugly and backwards world.' He continued to moan and groan as Ge simply rolled her eyes in frustration at him.

'Never mind then,' she angrily muttered. 'Alacrania, I need you to go and find the Precure for me.'

'And you?'

'I'll be reporting this to Master Myedo.' She briskly turned and started to head back into the shadows before tilting her head back, 'Oh, and don't take too long to defeat them, OK?'

'Pretty lucky that the ice cream was half-off today, Mizuhara?' Nobuko smiled as the two them of them stepped out from the automatic doors of the convenience store. She held up the bag with a tub of vanilla ice cream the two of them had decided to buy.

'Y-yeah!' Jenny beamed. 'Let's hurry back to your place before it melts though!'

The two girls made their way down the sidewalk, which was surprisingly devoid of people for the late afternoon. As they walked, their footsteps almost in sync with each other, they continued to chat casually with each other. Their conversation soon hit the topic of their dreams.

'Hey, Arakawa,' Jenny began, nervously. 'Have you ever had a recurring dream?'

'Yeah, why?'

'Well, it's just, I've had the same dream for the past few days, and I'd really like to tell someone about it.'

'OK, what's this dream then?'

'It's hard to describe,' she began, trying to remember it. 'It feels like I'm in danger and not myself during it. But eventually someone comes and saves me during it, and I feel a sense of relief like I'm back to normal.' She scratched her head, 'Like I said, it's really weird because I know I've had this dream a few times, but it's hard for me to remember the details, you know?'

'Just how dreams are.'

'There is one more thing I remember,' she continued. 'The person who saved me – they called themselves Cure Hope.'

Hearing that name, Nobuko ceased walking and began panicking to herself, 'C-cure Hope?' she wondered. 'Does she know that's me? No, she can't – can she? I mean, she was already turned when I transfo-'

'Arakawa?' Jenny asked, waving her hands in front of her friend's face. 'Are you OK?'

'Huh?'she gasped. 'Y-yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine. Cure Hope, eh?'

Jenny began to chortle, 'Yeah, it's kind of a dumb sounding name, isn't it? Sounds like something from a magical girl anime!'

'It's not a dumb name! I ch-' she snapped, before realizing she was about to reveal her identity to Jenny. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down before continuing. 'I mean, I don't think it sounds dumb, I think it's a pretty cute name myself.'

'Yeah, I mean, not my fault my brain comes up with those kind of names, is it?'

'It was my brain that came up with Cure Hope,' Nobuko thought to herself before suddenly remembering the ice cream she was carrying. 'The ice cream!' she exclaimed, reaching into the bag and feeling the tub with her fingers. 'It's still pretty cold, we should be good. Let's go!' She quickly ran down the sidewalk, with Jenny following close behind.

As they prepared to turn the corner, Nobuko felt a familiar presence behind her, as she prepared to stop and carefully see if her suspicions were correct, an all-too familiar voice spoke up.

'I finally found you!' the voice, which Nobuko immediately identified as belonging to Alacrania shouted. The two of them slowly turned around. 'Oh, and the young lady you saved is with you! How cute.'

'A-arakawa,' Jenny shuddered, taking a step back. 'W-who's that and why does she know you?'

Moving her hand through her dirty-blonde hair, she smirked at the two of them mockingly, 'I'd have thought you'd remember me, Alacrania, but I suppose not.' She looked around, 'It'd normally be a waste of my powers to re-' she stopped, noticing a dog sleeping on the sidewalk across the street from them. 'Never mind then,' she chuckled. Conjuring an identical dark sphere as before, she shouted 'O Dark Spirits! Turn this dog into a puppet for me!' as she launched the sphere at the sleeping dog.

The dog yelped in pain as the sphere burst and the clouds engulfed it. They rapidly grew in size before disappearing – in their place was another creature, similar to the one that Jenny had been turned into, only this one was on all fours and had a canid appearance to it. The creature let out a thunderous and deafening roar.

'W-what is that thing?!' Jenny screamed in terror at the creature. 'Arakawa!' She grabbed a hold of Nobuko's arm and shook it vigorously. 'Answer me!'

'Take these,' Nobuko bluntly replied, handing Jenny her purse and the bag with the ice cream in it. 'Hurry and hide.' She turned and looked at her with determination, 'Now!'

'B-but what abou-?' Jenny began, nervously holding the purse and bag.

'I'll be fine, just go!'

Swallowing her fear, she hurried off behind the corner. 'Please be OK,' she whispered to herself as she curled up and carefully peaked around the corner, the curiosity of wanting to see whatever Nobuko was going to do being too hard for her to resist.

Clenching her fists in anger, Nobuko looked intently at both the creature and Alacrania. 'Precure! Power up!' she shouted at the top of her voice. Her Cure Bracelet opened and engulfed her in its bright pink light, instantly transforming her into her Precure form. 'The protector of optimism across all worlds, Cure Hope!'

'C-cure Hope!' Jenny exclaimed in shock. 'Y-you're Cure Hope? That wasn't a dream!?'

'Mizuhara,' Hope replied, turning towards her. 'I'd wanted you to not find out – for both our sakes.'

'Oh, isn't this lovely,' Alacrania mocked. 'The rescuee and the rescuer meet again! Enjoy this reunion while you still can.' Turning her head towards the creature, 'Puppet! Destroy Cure Hope!' she commanded before leaping away.

The creature roared and began to slowly lumber towards Hope. Running as fast as she could, she leapt into the air and swung her fist at the creature, launching a wave of energy at it. The creature stumbled back as the energy wave struck it. Continuing to swing her fists, Hope launched wave after wave of energy at the creature, hoping to move it away from the neighborhood. Unfortunately for her, the creature soon realized what she was doing and, as she prepared to send another attack, it opened its mouth and emitted a shockwave, knocking Hope out of the air and sending her smashing onto the cold, hard ground.

'Arakawa!' Jenny screamed in horror as she saw Hope lying motionless on the ground. As Hope slowly picked herself up, she called out to her, 'P-please be careful!' Hope looked over at her, smiling, and flashed her a peace sign.

'She protected you, you know-pyn.' Pynchon suddenly spoke up.

Surprised by the unfamiliar voice, Jenny hurriedly looked around in a panic. 'W-who said that?' she worriedly asked.

'In here-pan!' yelled Panchon. Realizing that the voices were coming from Nobuko's purse, which was still clenched in her hands, she slowly opened it up and carefully took a look inside, fearful of whatever it was that was speaking to her.

'Hello! I am Panchon-pan!' Panchon excitedly greeted her. Taken by complete surprise at the talking cat and dog in the purse, Jenny let out an ear-piercing scream as she dropped the purse and fell onto the ground in shock.

'A-a- t-t-talking cat,' she stammered. She looked all around at her surroundings in confusion before giggling to herself, 'That's it. I'm just dreaming, that's it. T-this is just a crazy dream.'

'I'm afraid this is no dream-pyn,' Pynchon calmly told her. 'This is very real-pyn.'

'W-what? There's no way, it can't be!'

'It is-pyn.'

'B-but you said that Arakawa protected me! And that strange woman said that same thing too!' She looked over at Hope, who was still engaged in combat with the strange dog-like creature. 'Please just tell me what's going on!'

'Look, we don't have time to tell you everything-pyn,' he began. 'But, that woman turned you into a creature just like she did to that dog-pyn. And Hope, er, Ms. Arakawa, after she saw what happened to you, her desire to save you caused her to awaken as a Precure-pyn.'

'A Precure?'

'The legendary warriors-pan!' Panchon happily explained. 'We've got to find them to protect everyone-pan!'

'I think I understand now,' Jenny slowly replied, picking herself up off the ground. 'Arakawa, she wanted to protect me and she did. She saved my life.' Slowly clenching her fingers into a fist, she continued speaking, 'You two, whatever your names are, do you know what this means?'

'No-pan!'

'It means I have to pay her back!' she yelled. 'Arakawa, no, Cure Hope saved my life and now I have to help her too!' A bright light, nigh identical to that which had appeared in front of Nobuko, appeared in front of her. After it faded away, in its place was another bracelet, again nigh identical to Nobuko's, only this one was dark green with a light green trim instead of pink. 'W-what is this!?' she excitedly stammered.

'It's a Cure Bracelet-pan!' Panchon shouted with joy.

'You've awoken as a Precure-pyn!' Pynchon said, triumphantly. 'If you want to help Hope, put the bracelet on and shout "Precure! Power up!"-pyn!'

Nodding in understanding, Jenny grabbed the Cure Bracelet and attached it to her arm. Doing exactly what Pynchon had told her, she shouted, 'Precure! Power up!' with all the determination she was able to muster. As soon as she finished shouting those words, her Cure Bracelet opened itself and engulfed her entire body with a bright green light. Her shoulder-length brown hair changed in color to dark green and grew in length until it was long enough to form two large buns on the sides of her head, with two strands of hair framing her face. Silver butterfly-shaped earrings appeared on her ears. Her clothes were replaced with a dark green dress which, at first glance, looked nigh identical to Hope's dress, but there were several differences between the two of them: Jenny's new dress lacked sleeves like Hope's, her bow was light green, and, instead of a white layer peeking from underneath the skirt portion of the dress, were light green bike shorts. Light green knee-length high heeled boots with dark green laces appeared on her feet.

Her transformation complete, Jenny shouted the words which instinctively came to her, 'The protector of change across all worlds, Cure Papillon!'

'A second Precure!?' yelled Alacrania, having taken notice at what had happened to Jenny. 'Ge won't be happy about this!'

'Ge?' Papillon wondered to herself before shouting to Hope, 'Cure Hope!' Hope barely even had time to react before Papillon had rushed by her side. Looking directly into her light pink eyes, she grabbed hold of Hope's hand and squeezed it tightly, 'I'm gonna pay you back for saving my life!'

But before Hope could even say anything in response, Papillon had grabbed a hold of one of the creature's legs, lifted it above her own head, and slammed it into the ground, resulting in a large hole where it struck.

'P-papillon,' Hope said, too astonished to say any other words.

'You'd been fighting this thing,' Papillon explained, dodging a counterattack from the creature with ease. 'It was already weakened by the time I attacked it. Now, come on, let's finish this thing!

'OK!' Hope shouted back at her. The two Cures sped towards the creature, leapt high into the air, and performed a double-attack against it, with Hope using a punch and Papillon a flying kick, with both attacks performed at once, the energy emitted from them combined in strength and collided with the creature, which yelped in pain and confusion.

'Papillon-pan!' Panchon yelled. 'Hurry and finish it off-pan!'

'Right!' she affirmed, leaping into the air. 'The power of the goddess, come to me!' Her Cure Bracelet opened and shot out a beam of green light, the light struck her right hand, resulting in a light green aura glow around it. Preparing herself, she clenched her fist tight, wound back, and swung it forward, shouting 'Papillon Swarm!' as she did so. As those words left her mouth, numerous butterflies, all in various shades of green, shot out from her hands and towards the creature. The butterflies all landed on the creature, completely covering it, with not a single centimeter left bare, before they simultaneously exploded in an immense array of green, with each butterfly's color having corresponded to the color of their explosion.

As the butterflies exploded, the creature let out one last agonizing roar before everything vanished – the creature and the explosions – leaving only the dog, which looked at both Hope and Papillon with curiosity before running off.

'Precure, you won't be able to defeat me forever!' Alacrania shouted as she disappeared in a flash.

The two girls detransformed and ran towards each other, embracing each other in a tight hug once they did.

'Mizuhara!' cried Nobuko. 'You're a Precure too!'

'Y-yeah, I am!'

'This is great-pan!' cheered Panchon, as she held Pynchon's paws and the two of them happily danced together.

'There are two Precure now-pyn!'

In the midst of all the excitement, Nobuko remembered what they were originally supposed to be doing before all this happened, 'The ice cream!' she rushed over to the bag and felt it. 'We're good!' she called to Jenny. 'Still feels plenty cold!'

Giving her friend a thumbs up, Jenny called back, 'OK! Now let's hurry home before your parents, and my mom, get worried!'

'We're home!' Nobuko called as she and Jenny entered her house.

'Ah, Nobuko,' her mother called back. 'What took you two so long?'

'Uh, it was really busy at the store, they were having a big sale, so uh, yeah. Pretty busy, you know?' She cast a look over at Jenny and the two girls giggled to themselves at their little white lie.

'Oh, well, once you two put the ice cream away, come into the dining room, your father and I are almost done bringing out dinner, we only have to bring out your plates now.'

'Wait,' Nobuko said quietly to Jenny. 'Mom was still making dinner when we left, wasn't she?'

'Yeah, she was.'

'Then how long were we gone for?'

Jenny shrugged, 'I don't know, I didn't check my phone or anything.'

'It couldn't have been past 4:00,' Nobuko commented, taking her phone out of her skirt pocket. Unlocking it, she gasped at the time displayed on it: 4:55 PM. Putting her phone away, she chuckled and joked, 'Heh, guess the place was busier than we thought.' Jenny smirked at Nobuko as the two of them entered the kitchen, almost bumping into Nobuko's mother, who was just heading out, carrying two plates of her beef and potato spaghetti.

'Whoa, careful there, you two!' she teased them. 'Almost made me drop your plates!' She smiled warmly at the two of them before continuing into the dining room.

'You know, I just thought of something,' Nobuko began as she opened the freezer and looked around for an empty spot to put the tub of ice cream in.

'What?'

'Well, since we're both Precure now,' she continued, having finally found a place for the ice cream. 'How about we call each other by our given names? I mean, if you want, I don't wanna seem like I'm forcing this or anything.'

'N-no, you're not!' Jenny exclaimed. 'I'd be fine with this, N-nobuko.'

Closing the freezer behind her, Nobuko beamed brightly at her friend, 'Alright then, Jenny! Let's go and enjoy my mother's cooking!' An obvious sarcastic tone was audible when she said 'enjoy.' Grabbing hold of her hand, Nobuko dragged Jenny out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where the rest of their families had already begun eating.

Finding their plates placed next to each other, the two of them sat themselves at the table and prepared themselves for an enjoyable dinner together with their families.


	3. A New Opponent, Bishyu, Appears!

**CHAPTER 3 - A New Opponent, Bishyu, Appears!**

* * *

Deep in thought, Jenny spoke up, 'OK, I think I get it. There's a guy called Myedo who's bad and, for whatever reason, Ara – er, Nobuko and I have woken as these warriors called Precure who have to stop him, right?'

'That's exactly right-pan!' Panchon happily replied.

Crossing her arms and returning to her thoughts for a few moments, Jenny continued, 'And Nobuko, she saved me when that woman apparently turned me into some sort of creature. Wonder if that has anything to do with me becoming Cure Papillon?'

'I think it did,' Nobuko answered. 'You awoke after learning that I'd saved you and wanted to pay back what you thought you owed me.' Getting up from her bed, she started unbuttoning her top.

'W-w-what are you doing?!' Jenny nervously shouted, covering her eyes in embarrassment.

'What? We're both girls, aren't we?'

'Y-y-yeah I guess,' she stammered. 'It's just…' her voice trailed off.

'I get it, I get it,' Nobuko laughed, buttoning her top back up. 'I'll just change later.' Pausing for a moment, she continued, 'Hey, Panchon, Pynchon, shouldn't we contact the elder and tell him there's a second Precure now.'

'Yes-pan!' Panchon exclaimed.

'Would you do the honors, Ms. Arakawa-pyn?' Pynchon asked.

'Right,' she answered before holding her arm up across her chest and shouting, 'The two worlds connect and let us communicate!' The bright yellow light emitted from Nobuko's Cure Bracelet and quickly flashed away, leaving only the image of the elder, wherever he might be, in its place.

The elder looked around in surprise, 'What? What's goin-' before stopping as he realized what was happening. 'Ah, Panchon, Pynchon, and Nobuko, right? What are you contacting me for?'

'Elder,' Pynchon began. 'We have to tell you something-pyn.'

'Tell me? Well, out with it, don't keep me waiting here! Don't have all day, you know.'

'Well-'

'Another Precure-pan!' Panchon interrupted. 'We found another Precure-pan!'

'Ah, I see,' the elder replied, almost unaware of the importance of the news, but his eyes suddenly perked up and he continued, 'Wait, did you say "another Precure"?'

Jenny nervously raised her hand up and spoke, 'H-hi?' She had an unsure tone to her voice, still not fully comprehending what was going on in front of her.

Turning to look at her, the elder smiled, 'So, I take it you're the new Precure these two found, right?' He bowed towards her, 'Mind telling me your name, young lady?'

'Y-young lady?' Jenny stammered for a second before composing herself. 'My name's Jenny Mizuhara, er…' She scratched the back of her neck in confusion. 'Er, what should I call you, exactly?'

The elder let out a chortle, 'Please, just call me elder, it's the tradition here in our world.' He sat down and sighed, 'Now, did any of you have anything else you wanted to tell me?'

'Actually, I did elder,' Nobuko spoke up. 'It's actually about how Jenny here became a Precure.' Raising his eyebrow in interest, the elder gestured for her to keep talking. 'You see, I awoke as Cure Hope after she was turned into some sort of creature, and she became Cure Papillon after learning that I was the one who saved her. Do you think there's any relation between this?'

The elder rubbed his chin and closed his eyes and thought to himself, 'Perhaps.' Frowning slightly, he continued, 'I just don't know. I wish I knew more, I really do, but considering what happened,' his voice quietly trailed off

Everyone went quiet and the room became so silent, you could hear a pin drop onto its hardwood floors.

'Er,' Jenny quietly began, seemingly not wanting to break the silence. 'But _what_ happened? Sorry, bit out of the loop here, you understand.'

'Our world was attacked by Myedo-pan,' Panchon quietly answered.

'O-oh, I'm sorry. I just, I didn't know.'

'It's okay-pyn,' Pynchon reassured her. 'We didn't know until recently, either-pyn.'

Nobuko sighed, 'Well, unless anyone else here wants to ask the elder anything, we should probably let him go now.' She looked over at Jenny, Panchon, and Pynchon, none of them indicated that they had anything else to say. 'OK, well, goodbye elder,' she waved to the image of the elder.

'Bye-pan!'

'Goodbye-pyn.'

'Bye, nice to have met you, I suppose.'

'Farewell, Panchon and Pynchon! And to you two young ladies, I wish you goodbye as well and trust you can work together as the legendary warriors, Precure!' The elder's image dissipated from Nobuko's Cure Bracelet as quickly as it appeared to them only a few minutes prior.

'Hey, guys, I was just thinking,' Jenny began.

'What?'

'Well,' she continued. 'It's about Panchon and Pynchon. Since we're both Precure, shouldn't one of them stay with me and the other stay with you?' Nobuko nodded and Jenny looked over at the two of them, who were sitting on Nobuko's bed. 'Alright then, you two, who do you want to stay with?'

'Nobuko-pan! I want to stay with Nobuko-pan!'

'Well, I suppose I'll have to go with Ms. Mizuhara then-pyn.' sighed Pynchon.

Jenny chuckled, 'Well, since that's settled, guess I should head home then. Come on, Pynchon.' She carefully picked him off the bed and placed him in her schoolbag. 'I'll give you some snacks at home.'

'Alright, see you at school tomorrow!'

'Yeah, you too, Nobuko!' waved Jenny as she got up from the chair she was sitting in and headed out of Nobuko's bedroom, but as she walked past the dresser, her eyes caught glance of the photo on top of it and stopped her in her tracks. 'Hey, this picture you got here. Who're these girls in it?'

'Hmm?' Nobuko glanced up before realizing what she was talking about. 'O-oh, that pic. It's a photo of, well, it's a photo of my older sister and I.'

'A sister? Didn't know you had a sister.'

'I haven't seen her in years,' she explained sadly. 'Natsuko disappeared suddenly when I was nine years old…' She sighed.

'O-oh, oh my god.'

'Don't worry about it, how would you have known?'

'Y-yeah, it's just, I'm sorry, I'll be going now. Goodbye.'

'Bye,' Nobuko nonchalantly waved towards her friend as she closed the bedroom door behind her.

* * *

'Another Precure?!' an enraged Ge shouted. 'How can there be a _second_ Precure?!'

'How am I supposed to know _how_?!' argued Alacrania. 'All I know is it was the same girl that I turned into one of my puppets.'

Ge grabbed hold of Alacrania and yanked her directly in front of her and stared intensely into her eyes, 'Well, _you're_ going to have to be the one to explain to Master Myedo about the Precure this time, understand?' She let loose of the grip she had on her and shoved her away in frustration.

'Tsk,' muttered Alacrania as she brushed off where Ge had held her. 'Try being a bit less grabby next time, you almost chipped my armor.'

Ge exhaled in disbelief and rolled her eyes, 'Whatever, come on.' She turned round and headed back towards the shadows, with Alacrania following behind her. Before they were completely in the darkness, she yelled out, 'Oh, Bishyu! Looks like you're going to have to be the one to go out this time, I don't think Master Myedo is going to want Alacrania going out for a while!' She cast an annoyed look towards Alacrania, who only scowled back at her.

'Oh, very well! This time I suppose I'll bless this world with my beauty!' Bishyu called back.

Waiting until they heard the sound of Bishyu leaving their lair, Ge and Alacrania continued to venture into the dark and shadowy depths of it. Before long, they found themselves in front of a large stone archway, with only the faintest flickering of light visible on the other side of it.

'Ladies first,' teased Ge as she gestured for Alacrania to go in ahead of her.

Alacrania angrily walked in first, remarking out loud, 'We're both women, don't try to be funny here.' Ge followed in after her.

The room the two of them were in was massive compared to the archway that served as its entrance and, had they not acutely been aware of it, they would likely be utterly dumbfounded by its size in comparison. It was entirely made of stones and felt more as if it were transplanted from a cave system than a proper room, several torches hanging from the walls managed to cast _just_ enough light for them to see. Most notably, the floor of the room abruptly ended halfway across the room and beyond it, there was nothing but a seemingly never-ending black void.

'O Dark Spirits!' shouted Ge. 'Allow us to contact Master Myedo!'

A quiet and ominous rumbling began, accompanied by brief, but intense, flashes of a bright white light. Both the rumbling and flashes increased in intensity until a nearly earthshaking rumble and blinding flash occurred nearly simultaneously, the intensity of the light caused both Ge and Alacrania to cover their eyes. Uncovering their eyes, they both looked towards the void as the giant image of Master Myedo appeared to materialize from within it. His cream white robes covered nearly his entire body, with the only part of his true appearance that was visible was part of his wrinkled and grey face, but even that was mostly obscured by shadows.

'Master Myedo!' the two cried out as they knelt in deference to their master.

'You may arise,' Myedo spoke in a calm, but deep voice. 'Why have you contacted me again?'

'I think Alacrania here as something to tell you, Master,' remarked Ge.

'Er, well, Master Myedo,' she began, tapping her fingers together. 'You know how there's that Precure out there called Cure Hope?'

'I am well aware of their existence.'

'The thing is,' she continued. 'There's a second of them now.'

'WHAT?!' Myedo screamed, his voice filled with an immense rage. 'A SECOND PRECURE?!'

'Er, yes. She calls herself Cure Papillon.'

'This may prove difficult, but,' Myedo paused.

'But what, Master Myedo?'

'You _will_ defeat these Precure for me.'

'Of course, Master Myedo! I wouldn't dream of anything else!'

'Very well, I believe that were finished here. Alacrania, do not forget your obligations to me and Ge, do not forget that I chose _you_ to be in charge of operations on this world.'

'Understood, Master Myedo,' said the two of them as the image of their master faded away.

Alacrania scoffed. 'I don't know why Master Myedo put you in charge here.'

'What was that?'

'You heard me, I don't understand it. You and that mask you always wear, I've never seen your real eyes. Has Master Myedo even seen your full face, I wonder.'

Ge shook her head in disbelief and started to leave the room. 'Don't waste time wondering such nonsense,' she commented as she passed through the archway.

Left standing alone, Alacrania hurried out of the room herself.

* * *

'And here's your food,' the server smiled as he placed the plate with a piece of vanilla cake in front of Jenny. 'I hope you three ladies enjoy your snacks.'

Piercing her cake with her fork, she took a bite of it and began talking, 'It doesn't seem right Sawada, I just moved here, I should be paying for this stuff, you know.'

'Don't worry, don't worry!' Keiko smiled. 'My family owns this café, they don't really care if my friends eat free here.'

Jenny was unsure, 'Sorry, I just think that I should still pay, even if it's OK with your parents. Just this once, if anything else.'

'Oh come on, don't say it like that! You don't have to pay, so just don't worry about it!'

'But I _want_ to pay.' Jenny put her fork down.

'And I'm just say-' began Keiko.

'Keiko, that's enough,' interrupted Nobuko. 'If Jenny wants to pay, just let her. It's none of your business, really.'

'Thank you,' Jenny said as she resumed eating her cake. 'Hey, Sawada, how much is this piece of cake I got anyway?'

'Huh? How much?' She thought for a minute and muttered to herself. 'Well, I think it's 650 yen by itself, but you also got a cup of hot chocolate, so that's about 380 yen too and the whipped topping is another 80 yen. So that should be, gimme a sec here, should be a bit over 1100 yen.'

Without a word, Jenny had taken her wallet out of her pocket and checked inside. Closing it and putting it back, she simply clasped her hands together and sighed. 'Well, forget I said anything at all.'

'Don't have enough money, do you?' Keiko teased. 'Come on, if you wanna pay, I'll spot you for whatever you need.'

'Only have a 1000 yen note with me.'

Sliding a 500 yen coin across the table, Keiko flashed a V-sign at Jenny. 'You can keep the change, Mizuhara. My treat.'

'I'd have thought me not paying at all was your treat,' she replied as she took the last bite of her cake. Wiping any crumbs off her face, she stood up from her chair. 'Well, I guess I'll go tell them I want to pay for my cake and drink.' She made her way away from their table and to the front counter of the café.

'Honestly, Keiko,' Nobuko spoke up, gesturing her fork in her friend's direction. 'Jenny's new here, you shouldn't just start treating her like she's been here for years.'

Keiko sighed and stretched her arms, leaning back in her chair as she did so, 'Oh come on, Nobuko. Just wanna make her feel welcome and be her friend, that's all.'

'I get that, but she-'

'Ah, and here she's returned to grace us with her presence!'

'What are you even _talking_ about?'

Keiko laughed and waved her hand dismissively, 'Ah, it's nothing, nothing.' She got up from her chair and stretched, 'Come on and let's go!'

'Er, go where?'

'Anywhere! Still need to be shown around Eien City, don't you, Mizuhara?' She spun around, 'So just grab your drinks, you two, and come on!' Without even giving them a chance to say anything, she'd dashed out of the café, nearly knocking over one of the servers in the process.

Making sure to grab their drinks, Nobuko and Jenny simply looked at each other, shook their heads, and sighed, before heading after Keiko.

* * *

Materializing in a dark alleyway, Bishyu dismissively observed his surroundings and groaned, 'Disgusting and dirty, just like everything else in this world.' He chuckled to himself as he ran his fingers through his hair, 'But now that I'm here, it at least has _some_ beauty now.'

Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out several crystals, all of which glowed in varying shades of red. Tossing them in front of them, he shouted, 'O Dark Spirits! Create some obedient servants for me!' The crystals vibrated slightly before suddenly expanding in size and shape, becoming humanoid in their forms. The crystalline humanoids instinctively bowed on their knees at the sight of Bishyu.

'Ah, my beautiful servants,' he chuckled, clasping his fingers together. 'Go out and begin transforming this world for Master Myedo!'He pointed towards the exit of the alleyway. Without a word, Bishyu's servants stood up and marched out of the alley. 'Excellent, now for me to find a better place to observe their handiwork.'

* * *

'Keiko, slow down!' huffed Nobuko as she and Jenny chased after their friend, who was nearly ten meters away from the two of them.

Turning round and jogging in place, she called back to them 'Aww, come on, you guys are just too slow.' After they had both caught up with her, she laughed and placed her arms around both of them, 'I just wanna show Mizuhara some of the cool things we got here!'

'It's not like we'll run out of time,' said Jenny, squirming away from Keiko's grip. She took out her smartphone and checked the time on it 'It's not even two yet.'

'I know, I know,' she moaned. 'But tomorrow's Monday, so it'll be like another few days before we can spend all day around town.'

'And you want to spend all day out so you don't have to think about your schoolwork, don't you, Keiko?'

'N-no! It's nothing like that, I just-'

'I'm kidding, I'm kidding.' She smiled at her. 'So, where'd you wanna show Jenny first?'

'Eien Arcade!' Keiko excitedly said as she spun around on one foot and headed off once more. 'Don't be slowpokes this time, you two!'

As the three girls made their way through the streets, with Nobuko and Jenny trying their hardest to keep up with Keiko and her fast pace, Jenny suddenly spoke, 'H-hey, what does this Eien Arcade place even _have_?'

Without even a single beat, Keiko began replying, 'Oh it's great, Mizuhara, it's this huge arcade center, like you'd think from the name. Got tons of fun games to play: racing games, fighting games, dancing games, and more. My fave are the fighting games, I'm pretty good at them. Came second place in the citywide tournament last year, won a 5000 yen gift certificate for the shopping district, you know? But what I really love are the crane games, I've won lots of cool things in them, got a bunch of plushes from them at home, probably around thirty or so? It's a lot, so anyways another fun thing at the arcade is…' she continued on and on seemingly without pause.

Jenny cast a glance over at Nobuko and made an expression of utter confusion as to what was going on.

Well aware of what Keiko was like, having been friends with her for years after all, Nobuko simply shrugged and said, 'Keiko loves her video games and the arcade more than anything else.'

Keiko had stopped at the sidewalk corner, and turned around, smiling brightly. 'OK, Mizuhara, we're almost at the arcade! Just a bit down this next street and we can all have some fun for probably hours.'

'Er, actually about the arcade,' Jenny spoke. 'Kinda don't have a lo-'

'Money, money, I know, I know,' Keiko cheerfully interrupted her. She held up her purse and shook it, the sound of numerous coins could be heard moving around inside it. 'I got plenty of money for all of us.'

'W-what is that thing?!' a voice suddenly cried out.

'Help!' shouted another voice.

The three of them quickly headed around the corner to see what was going on. What they saw was shocking – the street was effectively in shambles, buildings had their fronts smashed and in ruins, and people were screaming, panicking, and running in every way possible.

'This has to be their work, right?' Nobuko whispered to Jenny, who nodded in the affirmative. 'Keiko!' she said determinedly 'Go and help get these people to safety!'

'Eh!?' Keiko was taken aback by shock, 'A-alright, but what about you guys?'

'Jenny and I are gonna head on down the street, see if anyone needs any help there.'

'Y-yeah, understood!'

'Let's hurry!' shouted Nobuko as she and Jenny began running down the street. Making sure that Keiko was out of earshot, she continued, 'Hey, do you think it's that Alacrania woman again?'

Before she could reply, they found themselves in the center of all this chaos. The entire area looked like a bomb had gone off, with rubble everywhere. There were no people, but it wasn't long before they noticed the humanoid figures that seemed as if they were busy arranging the rubble for some purpose.

'Ah, observing my servants, are you?' a mysterious voice spoke from behind them. 'I'm surprised you're not running away like everyone else.'

Turning around, there stood a tall and slender man. His face was narrow with piercing blue eyes, his hair long and silver. He had on a black leather jacket with an extremely long coat-tail that nearly touched the ground, underneath that was a crimson red top. Matching the color of his top was a pair of flared trousers, accented with golden gemstones around the hem, and on his feet was a pair of cream-colored boots.

'W-who are you?' Jenny nervously asked as she and Nobuko took a cautious step back.

'Who am I? I am Bishyu, loyal subject of Master Myedo!'

'M-myedo!'

'You need to transform-pan!' Panchon cried out from inside Nobuko's bag.

'Yeah, hurry up you two-pyn!'

Carefully tossing their bags with Panchon and Pynchon in them to the side, they both looked towards Bishyu and shouted, 'Precure! Power up!' The bright pink light from Nobuko's Cure Bracelet engulfed her, as did the green light from Jenny's. In a flash, they were both transformed into Precure.

'The protector of optimism across all worlds, Cure Hope!'

'The protector of change across all worlds, Cure Papillon!'

'An eternal force of justice, we are Forever Strong Precure!' the two of them exclaimed simultaneously, the words seeming to enter both of their minds together.

'Precure!' snarled Bishyu. 'So you're the ones causing all the trouble for us?' Raising his arm in the air, he called out 'Servants!' In a near-instant, all of the humanoid figures stopped what they were doing and surrounded the three of them.

Now that they could see them closer, they realized that they all appeared to be made of some sort of crystal. 'How could you do this?' asked Hope. 'Turn all these people into these, these _things_?'

Bishyu began laughing uproariously, tossing his head back as he did so, 'You think these were _people_, do you? The things that live on this world are far too ugly for me to even _consider_ turning into anything.' He looked over Hope and Papillon, 'Although I suppose you Precure aren't too bad looking.' Waving his hand dismissively, he sighed, 'It's no matter though. Servants, destroy these two girls for me!' In a flash, he disappeared from their sight.

Without a word, Bishyu's servants dashed towards Hope and Papillon, their fists prepared to throw a punch at the Precure. Reacting quickly, they both leapt into the air and away from the creatures, several of whom ended up smashing their fists into each other.

'Hah, that's what you get!' Papillon shouted as she carefully landed on her feet. 'Now take this!' she ran towards one of the creatures and punched it hard, the force of which sent it flying back and into the rubble of a destroyed building.

'Good job, Papillon!' Hope congratulated her friend as she threw another of the creatures over her head, it shattering into pieces as it was slammed onto the hard-concrete ground. 'This should be a piece of cake at this rate!'

'That's what you think!' shouted Bishyu, who appeared once more. 'Servants! Merge into one behemoth!' All of Bishyu's servants stopped moving and shrank back into their crystal forms, with the shattered one at Hope's feet reforming, before coalescing together and transforming into a massive crystalline quadrupedal beast.

The beast reared onto its hind legs and slammed its forelegs onto the ground, the ground shook violently, with Hope and Papillon only barely managing to stay on their feet.

'Be careful-pan!'

Briefly flashing the OK-sign at Panchon and Pynchon, Hope and Papillon looked at each other, then at the beast, and back at each other. Not even needing to say a single word, they both simply nodded at each other before splitting into two different directions. The beast looked both ways, trying to decide which of them to attack first.

'Now!' yelled Hope as she leapt into the air, clenched her hand into a fist, pulled her arm back, and swung it towards the beast.

'OK!' replied Papillon as she dove into a sliding kick towards the beast's legs.

Hope's punch and Papillon's kick both made contact with the beast simultaneously, with the force of both attacks combined resulting in it being knocked onto its side, with several fractures becoming visible in its crystalline body. It slowly began to pick itself up, as the fractures began fading away.

'Hope, Papillon-pyn! Either of you, finish that thing off quick-pyn!'yelled Pynchon.

'Got it!'

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Hope raised her fists above her head and called out, 'The power of the goddess, come to me!' Her Cure Bracelet opened and shot out the pink light, which engulfed her hands in the same pink aura as before. 'Hope Beam!' she screamed as she fired the ray of energy from her fists at the beast.

The beast struggled for a second before more fractures becoming visible, with them growing in size and number at a rapid rate. And before it likely realized what was happening, it shattered into numerous crystal fragments.

'Precure!' yelled Bishyu, clenching his fists in frustration and grinding his teeth together. 'You may have won this time, but your luck will soon run out!' He disappeared from their sights with a flash. Following his disappearance, all the damage caused by Bishyu and his servants was undone, with the entire area looking as if nothing had ever happened.

Turning back into their normal selves, Nobuko and Jenny patted each other on the back for a job well-done and tried catching their breath.

'B-bishyu…' Nobuko panted. 'Looks like there's more enemies for us to keep track of, huh?'

'Yeah, and there's also that Ge person, whoever they might be.'

'Hey, look,' she pointed at where the beast had shattered only a few minutes ago. Glistening on the ground were still several pieces of the crystals that had formed its body 'Think we should take that and see what the hell it is?' Taking a few pieces of the crystals each, they carefully put them in their bags, being mindful of Panchon and Pynchon, both of whom had reentered their partner's respective bags after all this had ended.

'Hmm, I wonder if the elder knows anything about these crystals-pyn,' wondered Pynchon as he held a piece of crystal in his paws.

'He has to know-pan! Nobuko-pan! Let's call the elder-pan!'

'Eh?!' exclaimed Nobuko, shocked. 'W-well we can't exactly do this right now, you know. There's bound to be people coming back here soo-'

'Hey! Nobuko! Mizuhara!' the all too familiar voice of Keiko interrupted. 'You guys alright?'

'Y-yeah!' Nobuko called back, waving at her friend, who was jogging up towards them. 'We're totally fine here!'

Having caught up with the two of them, Keiko paused to catch her breath, resting her hands on both of their shoulders so she wouldn't fall over. 'Man,' she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 'What even was that? Everything seemed to go back to normal like magic or something.'

Jenny shrugged nonchalantly, 'We don't know either, Sawada. Nothing seemed really out of place here. Isn't that right, Nobuko?' She chuckled nervously, trying to make sure it didn't seem like she was lying.

'Oh, yeah, there was nothing strange going on, nothing at all.' She scratched her cheek with her finger. 'Yup, nothing.'

'Hmm,' thought Keiko, as she intently looked at Nobuko and Jenny, who were both trying their hardest to keep a straight face. 'Well, if you guys say there wasn't anything weird, then I guess there was nothing weird.' She happily skipped away before turning back towards them, continuing to skip backwards, before stopping, 'Hey, you two! Don't dawdle, let's get to the arcade before everyone comes back!' She gestured her thumb behind her, 'It's just a bit this way, come on!' She turned back around and continue making her way down the street, before stopping in front of one of the buildings, waving and yelling something, but at this point, she was too far away for either of them to hear.

'Sawada's not very observant, is she?'

'Known her since kindergarten, she's always been like this,' Nobuko laughed. 'Ah, but I love her, and our friendship, just as it is.'

Smiling and giggling together, they made their way towards Keiko and the arcade, hoping that they'd all have a fun and relaxing time playing games together for most of the afternoon.


End file.
